Batas Mauricio
CHIEF Special Prosecutor Wendell Barreras Sulit, a lawyer of high caliber and unquestioned integrity, academic superiority, and competence, will now go down in the history of the legal profession in the Philippines as the lawyer who dared to fight President Aquino and his grave accusations against her in connection with a plunder case against a former military general, and humiliated him by prevailing against him.
In a decision handed down by the Court of Appeals last Wednesday, Aug. 03, 2016, three appellate court justices--Zenaida Galapate Laguilles, Marlene Sison and Mario Lopez-ejected Aquino’s 2013 orders of dismissal against Sulit as “unfair, misplaced, uncalled for, and an encroachment of judicial power.”
Sulit was unavailable for comment, but I am sure she will be very happy with the ruling. Not only will it return her to her former work as Chief Special Prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman, but it will also show that it pays to fight a delusional and vindictive president who was much feared even among justices and judges, and uphold truth and justice in the process.
The factual background of the case is summarized in a report written by reporter Jomar Canlas of the Manila Times. Canlas wrote: “ The CA ruled that Malacañang, during the stint of President Benigno Aquino III and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., committed an error and usurped the authority of the courts with an order dismissing Sulit from her post as top prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman.
“‘The decision dated July 18, 2013 and resolution dated December 6, 2013 of the Office of the President, dismissing petitioner Wendell Barreras-Sulit from the service, are hereby reversed and set aside,’ said the ruling, which was concurred in by Associate Justices Marlene Sison and Mario Lopez.”
Canlas wrote further: “(The case arose when) through a plea bargain, retired major general Carlos Garcia got away from a plunder charge filed by the Office of the Ombudsman. A lifestyle check had shown millions of pesos and pieces of property under Garcia’s name and members of his family, including a Trump Plaza condominium in New York.
“He was also charged with money laundering, and the Anti-Money Laundering Council even moved to freeze assets of the Garcias. The appellate court did not agree with the findings of Malacañang that the plea-bargaining deal with Garcia, which allowed the general to plead to a lesser offense, was unlawfully executed.
“It said the plea-bargaining agreement was lawful because Sulit executed the same under direct supervision of then Ombudsman Marceditas Gutierrez. Gutierrez and Sulit entered into the bargaining agreement with Garcia, asking to return assets to the Philippine government and allowing his plunder case to be downgraded to direct bribery charges. Garcia returned P135,433,387.84 to the government under the agreement.
“When Aquino assumed the presidency, however, he forced Gutierrez to resign from her post to be able to appoint a new Ombudsman, and then dismissed Sulit. But the Court of Appeals stated that the plea-bargaining agreement was also approved by the Sandiganbayan, which makes the agreement aboveboard and within the process mandated by law...”
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Okay, all right, lawyer Ariel Joseph Arias has a point in his Facebook post that there is a need to revive the ROTC program for college students not only to instill discipline among them but also to foster good citizenship and love of country.
For who would not want disciplined children growing up to be disciplined citizens, especially in the midst of devilish kids and treacherous older men and women who can do even the most heinous of crimes at the flick of a finger?
The problem however is that instilling discipline is not a simple matter of school children going through a military-like training, for even those rigorously trained in a discipline-filled academy like the one we all know of from Baguio City have shown themselves to be quite capable of absolute lack of discipline, and even total treachery in raiding government coffers and stealing billions of pesos once they are in power!
True discipline comes only after people realize that at one point in their lives, the breath in their nostrils would be pulled away from them and would ultimately stop, causing all other organs inside their puny bodies to ground to a halt, leaving them dead, forever.
It is the realization of their ultimate destiny--which is death--that sends people to serious thinking about where they would possibly go after dying. If they believe in God, they would have to believe likewise that there are only two alternatives of their final destination, and these are heaven and hell.
Surely, 99% of every man and woman in this world know that heaven is the place where those who listened to, and obeyed, God would go, to spend the rest of eternity in blissful living with Him. On the other hand, the same number of people would also know that hell is the place where those who disobeyed and ignored God would go, to be burned in unending fire and being eaten by immortal worms.
My take is that, if we want true discipline to come among our people, we should re-introduce them to spiritually, and a deeper faith in God, no matter what they conceive Him to be, or whether He is called Jesus (in the case of Christians) or Allah (in the case of Muslims), or whether He is known by any other name.
We must teach our people that mankind, who is as wonderfully complex as anything else in this world could ever be, could not have been born merely out of an accident or of some senseless catastrophe, but by a grand design which only an Almighty and Intelligent Being could have planned and brought about.
We must tell man that he was brought into this world for a very special purpose, under various rules that must be obeyed and complied with faithfully and sincerely. When we obey those rules, the promises contained in them will be given to us, in this world and in eternity. When we disobey, we reap the punishment that have been promised in them right from the start!
E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com
